Blizzards and Bastards, page 2
“I am not a stage-five anything,” I sniffle, sounding stuffed-up from my bloody nose. “The ladies’ room is out of order, so I came in here to pee. I just didn’t feel like talking to a bunch of weird-sounding men in a deserted restroom in the middle of nowhere, so sue me.”
I fling my hand for emphasis and spatter Vale with blood.
Oops.
He looks down at his white hoodie and cocks a single blonde brow.
“I’m not a stalker,” I murmur … and then my phone goes off again. It’s my dad this time, and my ringtone is yet another Inked Pages’ Christmas tune called A Dark and Open Heart.
“You stalk me in the night, chase me in the light of day, but misery, enjoy the cold shoulder because being single over the holidays isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Fuck. My. Life.
Just as I’m about to answer the phone, Donner wrestles it from my fingers and starts going through my photos—totally and completely illegal, I’m sure. Paparazzi take pics of these guys without their permission all the time, right? Even if I was a stalker, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Except, you know, assaulting a guy. But their security guard just assaulted me, too.
“Whoa,” Donner says, gritting her teeth and then passing the phone back. “She’s clean, guys. And now I can see why she didn’t want us to see her phone.”
As I reach out, Frost snatches my phone and … he sees it. He sees it; I know he sees it.
“Wow,” he says, blinking panty dropping-ly beautiful eyes at the screen as I grab my phone and yank it back against my chest. Why is it so much harder to be furious with a man whose eyes are the color of the evergreen trees at my favorite Christmas tree farm? And why am I comparing this cocksucking asshole to something so nice? I should say his eyes are … the color of … of … green mold on leftover fruitcake. “A threesome? One of the guys is wearing a Santa hat, so I’m assuming this was recent?”
It’s from two years ago. Other than the bookstore, that night is one of the few risks I’ve ever taken.
“My sex life is none of your damn business,” I shout, shoving past the blonde woman and into the snow outside. The ground is so icy, I immediately lose my footing and start to slip.
“Careful there,” a sinfully slow and sexy voice says in my ear, a dripping Southern drawl that should rightfully melt all the snow in a ten-foot radius. “Wouldn’t want a girl as—”
The man stops when I spin around and he sees the blood all over my face.
“Holy hell, what happened to that sweet face of yours?” he asks, reaching out a thumb and brushing it over my bloody lips. He may as well have flipped a switch in my brain, too, because suddenly all I can think about is Crispin Fox—the man standing in front of me as well as the bassist for Inked Pages—fucking me into soft flannel holiday sheets with snowflakes. It’s somehow all that much sexier to imagine him doing me hard and fierce and wild on such a sweet, innocuous bedding set.
“I—” I start to say, but then the door to the bathroom is swinging open and the rest of the band is piling up, their crazy security guard along with them. “I … sorry for the pepper spray … and the toilet.”
Putting a hand to my nose, I jog my way across the snowy parking lot and climb into my car, slamming the door closed and trying not to gawk at the massive pile of snow that’s collected on my windshield in such a short time.
I have just officially registered myself for my favorite band’s blacklist. Not only that, but I humiliated myself in front of them. Even worse: Aspen and Frost are rude. They’re always playing it up online, acting like Aspen is some sort of folk hero while Frost is brooding but kind. He did a whole video series of himself rescuing puppies and bottle feeding them.
My dreams are as crushed as my nose. I sniff and taste blood on my tongue. Hopefully it isn’t broken. That’s the last thing I need: the loss of my bookstore, an unwanted move from San Francisco to Detroit Lakes, the crushing disappointment of learning my favorite band is filled with Scrooges, and a broken nose that heals crookedly. Merry Christmas, Cyan.
“What the hell just happened in there?” I mumble as I turn the key in the ignition and … hear an awful sputtering sound instead of the engine turning over.
Oh no.
No. No, no, no. This is not happening, not here, not now … I’m miles from the nearest town on the snowiest day of the year, a blizzard incoming, with nowhere to sit and wait for the tow truck except in my freezing ass car or a public men’s room that reeks of old urine.
A knock on the door startles me and I glance up to find Crispin’s face in the ice-and-snow-crusted window. There’s white powder clinging to the edges, making it look as if the man’s handsome mug is stuck in the center of one of my father’s holiday-themed picture frames.
“Want me to take a look?” he asks, dog tags hanging low, wearing nothing but a gray wifebeater and a denim jacket. Like, he has to be freezing his perfectly sculpted little ass off out there and yet, he’s smiling at me. No, grinning is more like it.
Seems like Crispin’s public persona is on-brand: he’s a notorious ladies’ man. Not six months ago, he was involved with some actress. Hard to say if his kindness here is an act or if it’s genuine. Either way, does it matter? I need the help.
Before I can even think to respond, Crispin is yanking the door open, prying it loose from the crusted ice and flooding my senses with his smell. I can almost taste it on the back of my tongue, this musky sweetness, like amber and apples. I want to scoop it up with a spoon and eat it over ice cream.
“You know about cars?” I say skeptically, looking at the man in the holey denim pants and boots like he’s full of shit. He’s a freaking pop star. The fuck does he know about cars?
If I sound salty, it’s because I am. I’ve been in love with Inked Pages for years, and now that I’m meeting them in person … Vale didn’t make a move to help me when I was bleeding. Frost was actively insulting me. Aspen is a creep who crawls into bathroom stalls. And Crispin? While I appreciate the help, he’s turning on the charm, and I know it’s not because he’s fallen for the bloody girl in the snowman dick jacket.
“A little,” he says, leaning in toward me, so close I swear for a second there that he’s about to kiss me on the mouth. I meet his warm brown eyes, like my grandma’s big, soft ginger cookies. Like, fucking seriously, just staring at them for a second, I can see all sorts of gradations and different colors in his irises, like God spent a little extra time with a tiny detail brush to get this man just right. “Gotta pop the hood,” he says, grabbing the small switch near my left knee and tugging on it.
He retreats from the car, taking his sandy-brown hair and perfect ass with him, and opens the hood.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Frost growls, storming over to us and staring at me with his evergreen eyes, crossing his arms over his white t-shirt and looking at me like I’m the Antichrist. “We need to go. Concert in Saint Paul, remember?”
“Eh, that’s days away and this little lady’s got a dead battery,” Crispin says, lifting up from his position inside the hood. “So get the jumper cables from the bus and let’s give her our juices.”
Our juices?
My brain—whose switch was totally flicked by Crispin, remember?—starts fantasizing about him riding me from behind, coming inside, and making me scream my favorite Christmas carols.
Okay, wow.
Clearly, staying up all night to wrap Christmas gifts was not a good idea. The lack of sleep is playing tricks on my brain and making me feel even weirder than usual. It’s not like I’m a nympho or a sex addict or anything—despite what Frost Manderach might think of those threesome photos.
“Juices?” Frost asks, his dark hair tousled and beautiful against the snowy white backdrop. He didn’t participate in the whole dye-your-hair-for-donations thing, and instead offered to take the most generous donor on a private date—private except for the fact that the whole event was live-streamed. Very romantic. “You’re seriously deranged, bro.”
“Whatever, dude,” Crispin says, imitating his bandmate’s distinctive West Coast accent. “Just get the jumper cables, so we can get this sweet slice o’ sugarplum pie on her way now.”
“I don’t know why the battery would be dead,” I choke out, climbing from the car and waddling over to Crispin in my two hundred layers of winter clothing. Dragging my purse along with me, I dig out some wet wipes and start cleaning the blood from my face.
My nose hurts and I figure it’ll probably be bigger and brighter than Rudolph’s by the time I get to my parents’ place. Won’t my sisters and brothers have a field day with this one. They’ve been teasing me mercilessly since the day I was born, and I have a feeling things aren’t about to change. They might have families of their own now, but that doesn’t stop them all from acting like pricks.
“Here, let me get that,” Crispin says, leaning over and taking the wipe from my hand before I can protest. He slides it across my lips first thing, taking that sex thermostat in my brain and amping it up by a hundred degrees. My nipples, already hard from the cold, pebble into icicles. Hang ‘em from a rooftop, and they could be deadly. “Poor thing. Donner’s a bitch; she owes you a serious apology.”
“No,” I say, but the word is breathy and sweet and all I really want to say is yes, yes, yes to whatever this man wants to do with me. God, am I that desperate? I tamp down on my hormones which are raging completely out of control and try to pretend like standing in front of my idol isn’t doing shit to my body. Like, my sex isn’t swollen between my legs, and my heart isn’t chugging along like the Polar Express. “It was an accident; the whole situation in the bathroom was an accident.”
“Well, regardless, we’ll get your car runnin’ and get you on your way, okay?” His voice oozes over me, hot buttered rum with a real cinnamon stick. I’m drunk on it. Spicy.
“Sure,” I reply in a daze, mesmerized by Crispin’s face, the strong, stubbled line of his jaw, his lush mouth, the length of his lashes. Ladies’ man, remember, Cyan? Doesn’t he flirt with everyone via his fan cams? You bet he does. “Thank you.”
Crispin finishes wiping the blood from my face and steps back, flicking his tongue across his lower lip and shivering briefly. So he is cold, standing out amongst all this snow with little to no clothing on. He does make a pretty sight though, so at least there’s that. I shrug myself out of my largest coat and offer it to him. He doesn’t take it, just stares at it like he can’t imagine why anyone would do that for him.
I clutch the snowmen-with-dicks outerwear against my chest, mortified. They think you’re a fangirl, remember? Wait. I am a fangirl. But our meeting is pure coincidence. Who would believe something that crazy though? No wonder they don’t like me.
“Did you find the cables?” Crispin asks suddenly, and I glance over my shoulder to see Frost striding through the snow in black suede snow boots and matching jeans. He looks irritated as fuck, and he’s definitely not holding anything in his hands.
Uh-oh.
“There are no cables,” he drawls with a long, tired sigh. His eyes flash to mine, a hot take that my bloody nose and crumpled snow-dick jacket don’t deserve. Oh. Frost’s attention lingers on the sharp V-shaped dip of my cranberry-colored sweater. The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkles as he forces himself to refocus on my face. “Donner says we don’t have any.”
“Did you ask Magda?” Crispin says, and I wonder who that might be. Some lucky girl who gets to hang out on their bus? A groupie? Oh, God, I bet she’s a groupie! My stomach feels queasy. Too many of my grandma’s pecan tarts in the car. Well, from my grandma’s recipe. She can’t bake anymore because—
I suck in a breath and both men turn to stare at me. The expressions on their faces are complete opposites: open and thoughtful, closed-off and small-minded. But then the latter smirks and shakes his head, putting his hands into the rear pockets of his pants. His eyes find that V-dip again, and I shift from one foot to the other. Does Frost find me attractive?
No way. Not a chance. I’m fangirl-fantasizing.
But then … Frost wets his lips and runs his tongue over his teeth. Uh. It was the threesome pictures, I’ll bet. Had to be. I looked pretty hot as Ms. Claus, huh?
“Magda says no, too, so let’s call this girl a tow truck and get the fuck out of here.” Frost narrows his eyes at me, hot as hell in his big puffy jacket, unzipped and showing off the tight white t-shirt underneath, his nipples as pebbled and hard as my own. He is into me. He totally is. He quirks the corner of his mouth again, and I know that I’m not imagining it. Then he scowls at me, and I get oh so confused.
Crispin closes the hood and steps back, pulling his phone from his pocket and wiggling it at me.
“A real man never leaves a lady in distress,” he says and then winks. I find him as charming as I find Frost annoying. Too bad I can’t trust either of them. Crispin might be billed as a ladies’ man, but Frost is billed as the cinnamon roll of the group. You know, all gooey on the inside. He looks like a goddamn ice sculpture. “Lemme make a call and we’ll get this taken care of.”
Twenty minutes later … I’m climbing up the stairs to their bus.
CYAN
On the first day of Christmas, another bathroom incident
I’m sitting on a couch covered in Christmas pillows and sipping a mug of hot cocoa, the awkward silence settling over me like the blizzard’s settled over the landscape outside. It’s cold and white, the snow endless and unbroken, a virgin landscape of nothing. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of a house or two, Christmas lights bright against their quiet, white yards. But for the most part, it’s just us and the icy road.
“So,” I say, as all four boys from the band sit around and twiddle their thumbs, “you guys are going to the concert in Saint Paul?”
Every year, the Heat the Frost concert rolls into nothing-ever-happens Minnesota to film a winter concert with real live snow and everything! I’m joking, but … also not. They come here for the weather, to make it authentic. And people love it. Last year, it took the record for most concurrent live-stream viewers at one time. Yeah, the video itself has accumulated thirty-million hours watched.
At least two dozen artists are participating this year in an over-the-top holiday performance, culminating in Inked Pages’ pop/rock/hip-hop hybrid versions of the most popular Christmas classics—Jingle Bells, O Holy Night, and O Tannenbaum.
Nobody answers right away, so I just nervously blurt out, “And what do you think of Minnesota so far?”
“It’s a desolate nightmare with crazy girls hiding in bathroom stalls,” Aspen says, lying on his back on a nearby couch, a cold compress over his eyes, his ankle boots and toilet-water jeans traded out for a pair of … green and red striped flannel pajama pants?
Okay then.
He looks hot, even in the ridiculous kitschy Christmas wear … and despite the fact that he hates me.
“You need to calm your ass down,” Crispin says, sitting close enough to me that our thighs touch. To be fair, there aren’t a lot of places to sit in this bus. The far back holds a decent-sized bathroom with a shower and toilet, and then along one wall, there’re bunks stacked two high. The wall opposite them has a long bench seat with storage underneath which bleeds into a galley style kitchen. We’re sitting across from the cooling tea kettle, its surface painted with smiling reindeer.
Wow, my dad would freak all the way out over this, I think as I take in the blinking multi-colored lights, timed to twinkle along with Inked Pages’ newest Christmas song, A Gift of Starlight, the one that played on my phone when my mom called earlier. The one about thighs.
Crispin’s leg shifts, blue denim and the soft whisper of my cotton leggings. My attention falls to a particular hole in his jeans, one that shows off the hot skin of his upper thigh.
I look back up at his face, and notice him noticing me. Crap. His smile shifts a little, a secret acknowledgment. Crispin seems like the sort of man you want Santa to leave under the tree, but probably fucks like he was abandoned by Krampus.
Don’t fall for the nice guy ruse, Cyan. Just don’t.
What I should do is call my parents back. I know my dad’s probably clutching his phone in tight fingers, fretting over what that asshole Aspen Carver said to my mom.
Great.
Now they’ll either think I’m a) being kidnapped, b) screwing strangers in bathroom stalls, or c) bringing a man home for the holidays.
Oddly enough, I’m bringing home four of them. I suppress a small smile. Hah. If only.
If Christmas miracles existed, my Gram wouldn’t be— And I’d still have my bookstore. And the apartment we shared together. I wouldn’t be moving home to live with my parents at age twenty-two sans my pride and dignity.
“Calm down?” Aspen breathes out, like he’s been betrayed by one of his own. He adjusts the cold compress on his face and flinches. When he shifts to get more comfortable, his shirt rides up and flashes a slim stripe of bare skin on his taut lower belly. “Have you ever had a can of pepper spray nut in your eyes? Candy-scented poison jizz. It fucking hurts.”
“Try to act like a gentleman every once in a while. Ain’t gonna kill ya.” Crispin draws a candy cane from the tin on the counter, unwraps it, and then offers it out to me with a lifted brow.
I shake my head and he shrugs, slipping it between his lips like it’s a cigarette.
If our initial meeting hadn’t been so fraught, I’d be absolutely thrilled to be sitting here, watching Crispin gently tap his teeth against the long end of the candy cane in thought. Pretty sure when he offered to help me, he didn’t think I’d be invading his personal space and private time.
“I still don’t understand how a person can accidentally shoot someone in the face with pepper spray,” Aspen gripes, edging the compress up on one side so he can stare at me with puffy, red eyes. Somehow, he’s barely less handsome. His shirt is rucked up over his belly, one knee cocked, biceps generous as he sits up on his elbows.
